FEBRUARY 19 - MARCH 11, 2007

application deadline: October 27, 2006

KYLE GANN, composer

Kyle Gann is known, as a composer, for music that extends our pitch and rhythm resources in the directions of microtonality and multitempo structures. He is also known as a music critic and authority on contemporary music who has published in more than 40 publications, including a column that ran in the Village Voice from 1986 to 2005. Born and raised in Dallas, Gann studied with Ben Johnston, Peter Gena, and Morton Feldman, and received degrees from Oberlin Conservatory and Northwestern University. His music has been inspired by American experimentalists like Ives, Nancarrow, and Young, and also by the rhythms and melodies of Native American music. He has performed his one-man microtonal theater piece Custer and Sitting Bull in more than 25 cities including Moscow, St. Petersburg, San José (Costa Rica), and Brisbane, and his more conventional microtonal opera Cinderella's Bad Magic premiered in Moscow. His Transcendental Sonnets for chorus and orchestra was commissioned by the Indianapolis Symphonic Choir, and My Father Prayed by the Dessoff Choir. His books include The Music of Conlon Nancarrow (Cambridge University Press, 1995), American Music in the Twentieth Century (Schirmer, 1997), and Music Downtown (University of California Press, 2006). Compact discs of his music include Nude Rolling Down an Escalator, a recording of works for computer-controlled Disklavier on the New World label, Long Night for three pianos on Cold Blue, and Custer's Ghost, a disc of microtonal works on the Monroe Street label.

Residency Statement

I am looking forward to discussing issues of the artist's social responsibility versus developments of the musical language with composers of notated music who (mentally check any that apply) were inspired by minimalism but feel a need to move beyond it; who are fascinated by microtonality; who feel that the composer owes some debt to society; who feel that simplicity is an inherent artistic value; who are interested in bridging the pop-classical divide; or who are simply tired of high modernism's pose of intellectual superiority. I will be happy to look at, listen to, and explicate new or not-quite-so-new compositions; discuss compositional strategies for reaching a broader public or expanding the listener's range of perception; discuss distribution or audience outreach strategies; and explore cross-fertilizations between pop and classical music.

Application Requirements

Prospective associate composers should submit recordings of two works with scores, if applicable; a statement of musical interests; and a description of what creative work they'll be doing at the residency.